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COLLEGE WORLD SERIES: LUBBOCK REGIONALJune 5, 2017Riley CooperMatt DeggsHunter HearnRobie RojasLubbock, Texas Sam Houston State - 4, Texas Tech - 3 THE MODERATOR: Questions for the student-athletes. COACH DEGGS: First and foremost, very humbled and thankful to get to coach this team. It's an incredible team with incredible make-up, with incredible families. Just very humbled right now. It really hasn't hit me yet. This is a program that basically works and lives. I've been talking about us being a David in a land full of Goliaths, and Matthew 19:26 says: With man this would be impossible, but with God all things are possible. And that's what this ballclub is all about. It's just 27 guys who walk through faith, sacrifice and obedience, and have dotted their I's and crossed their T's, and they deserve this moment. Just so thankful to the Lord that he carried us through this thing, because Robie just brought it up to me. Four weeks ago we were getting on a bus after getting swept by Houston Baptist, and things didn't look so great for us. But this ballclub is very, very tough, very resilient. They don't know the word quit. We talked all week leading up to this that it's only impossible until somebody does it. Once somebody does it, it's not impossible. This is the first team in Sam Houston State history that's ever advanced to the Super Regional, and first team out of the Southland Conference to advance to the Super Regional, and we're very proud to represent that conference. That's a very, very tough, competitive conference. We're just so thankful and grateful. This is just a team that loves each other. We're in the business, as coaches with my program, our program, we're in the business of developing men, well-rounded men, that go on to be great husband's and fathers. You know, guys that do things the right way, and they leave a legacy for their family. The perk of that is we get to play baseball and we all love playing baseball. So just very humbled and thankful. Just really, and truly want to say thank you to the great folks here at Texas Tech. I've been blessed to be in a lot of these, Chris, Steve, all these guys, you guys are professionals. This has been run first class. The people here have been incredible. Our experience, if we would have won or lost, I would tell you guys the same thing. Our experience has been incredible. We had a blast competing against those guys. That is an amazing team over there. Just so fortunate that we came away with a victory today. Q. Robie, can you talk about just the four seniors, your guy's performance today? You had some of the biggest plays of the game. Heath comes in and gets out the runners on the corner jam. Taylor Beene gets the tag out, and Lance Miles gets the error that sends the game winning run across? ROBIE ROJAS: Yeah, this whole team in general, we played this whole week like we were not afraid to lose. We're not afraid to go home. We knew no matter what we loved each other and we've had a great run. So when you play with the fear of not losing or crashing and burning, you're going to do things like this. So as a team on a whole, when you continue to play with the fear of not having any fear of going home, it's definitely a good feeling. Q. Riley, I think 115 pitches the last day, 159 for the regional. Can you feel your arm, and how are you feeling right now? RILEY COOPER: Yeah, can I feel my arm? Yeah, I can feel it. It's definitely there right now. But, no, we talk about it all the time, if you show up to the field and you're only feeling 40%, we want 100% of that 40%. Waking up this morning Coach Sirianni asked me if I was ready to go. And Coach Deggs told me, "I just need one inning. I don't care if the ball can reach the plate. I just need one inning out of you." So going in, it was just one of those I was going to do what I had to do for the guys playing behind me, the guys in the dugout. And that's what we all do it for is each other. Q. Hunter, you've had some ups and downs during the season. Played at the best time in the conference tournament and then rallied for three straight wins to win this regional. What does that mean for you guys? HUNTER HEARN: Oh, I mean, it's big. It's huge. This is by far the biggest thing I've ever been a part of. We just stay close together and stay grinding, stay practicing, stay climbing. We're all ready to go practice tomorrow. I'm extremely thankful for everything and to be a part of this team. Q. Robie, so many firsts for this team this week. But from you as a catcher catching all these guys, does it make it even more special to do what you did with what you had? ROBIE ROJAS: Oh, yeah, when you have guys like Coop, like he said, there were 115 pitches in two days. I mean, with him coming out there and throwing that after short rest or not even any rest to be honest, it's definitely a good feeling knowing you've got pitchers like that, that will run out there no matter what. Heater, he had what? A day, maybe, of break. So especially with Coach Sirianni, you trust in him and trust in the pitchers. So it's a good feeling going back there and knowing you have guys like that. Q. You kind of touched on it a second ago. And I know you said even if you had 40%, give it your 100%. But did you do anything with your pitches to maybe be able to extend yourself as long as you could go once you realized you might be out there for a while, or did you just throw it all out there and when they take you out, they'll take you out? RILEY COOPER: Kind of like what I said yesterday. I don't think too much when I'm out there. I just kind of do what I'm told. And I was told give us everything you've got for one inning. And I knew the guys behind me, man, we've been playing a stellar defense all week long, and I knew if I executed the pitches called by Robie that my defense would have my back. I think that showed today especially. I didn't have my best stuff, you know, but I knew that I could trust my defense to have my back. Q. Hunter, talk about that tag out that Beene had, the ball going over your head and trying to pick it up, fumbled it a little bit, but able to get it to Andrew in time to get it to Beene and tag him out? What were your emotions seeing that happen? HUNTER HEARN: Honestly I didn't see it happen. Jung put a great swing on the ball and it hit the wall. I misplayed it and didn't play it very good. So I thought, well, I'm just going to get this ball in as fast as I can. I was like, man, that one's on me, you know. Because Coop's up there grinding. I think it was Coop that was pitching, wasn't it? Coop's up there grinding. Man, I looked up and everybody was celebrating, I was like, oh, my gosh, I got out of that one. So extremely thankful for Beene doing that. COACH DEGGS: I want to say something. I had an opening thought, and that's really where my heart was when I opened up. But we came in to Sam Houston State, I was hired by Dr. Hoyt and Coach Bobby Williams, and just very thankful for that opportunity. We have an incredible administration, incredible support, great facilities and a great location. There have been, I guess that's the point I want to make. I'm just so happy for them. The vision when we came in was top 25 RPI, 40-plus wins, conference championship, and ultimately a chance as a program, community, team, university to have the chance to walk through the gates of Omaha, and now we have that chance. I'm just so thankful to our administration for giving me and my coaches that opportunity to work with these boys. Really and truly, this is for all the former teams. There has been a ton of great players that have come through this program that deserve the chance to continue to play and maybe didn't get it, or teams that were on the verge and maybe something didn't go their way. There has been a ton of great players come through here. Right now I can tell you this, this, what we have done now is for all of those guys that have come through Sam Houston State and given their blood, sweat, and tears for this baseball team and this university. And we are very thankful to get to represent that. Q. I know you mentioned that you'd try to limit them to string hits together. When you got those three runs, did you think you took that wave on and were able to kind of sustain that? Did you feel you had the chance? And with that hit-and-run later in that 8th, it seemed they were trying to get something going as well? COACH DEGGS: Let's not kid each other here. We caught some breaks too. The play at third, the popped up safety. We caught some breaks too along the way. If you would have asked me last night or this morning do you think it's going to be a four-three game, I would have bet you anything, no way. No way. I thought it was going to go one way or another, I thought it could really spin on us and get nasty, or we were going to be in a 10-8 ballgame, 10-9 ballgame. 4-3, I'd have never thought that. I thought we played incredibly good defense, and Riley Cooper, you know, we kind of hit on something there with him. He's really soft. You could catch Riley with a pair of needle-nose pliers. It ain't coming in there too hard. We were able to disrupt timing. He throws a lot of strikes. What you're looking for on a day like today is strikes. No errors, strikes, because they leave the ballpark a lot. So if we give up a jack, it needs to be a solo jack. So we got to Riley and just rode him. I have no problem with his amount of pitches, if that kid never pitches again, I promise you he would trade it for this moment right here. He's not going to spend a day in the Big Leagues. This is his Big Leagues. This was his opportunity. So pitch count and all that, you can say whatever you want, this was his opportunity, and he went and capitalized on it. Q. I wanted to ask you about the seniors as well. Lance gets injured late in the season, comes back today and gets a check swing that eventually is the game winning run. Then Heath after struggling on Saturday comes in and gets out of a huge inning for you guys. What did you feel for those guys? COACH DEGGS: That's who we are, grinders. Grinders. Lance Miles, so everybody here knows is playing with a broken left-hand. His bottom hand is broken. It's been broken for three weeks, and it's an eight-week recovery. Our second baseman is playing with a broken hand. Last year he played with a broken wrist. Taylor Beene played the entire season with a broken thumb last year. Heath Donica's out there giving everything he has for this ballclub, everything. And he's held together with leather and barbed wire. These guys are men, and they're grown men. They are the ultimate team guys. That's what this program is built on. Nothing comes before team. It's all about family and team. So it's nothing for us to play hurt and lay it on the line for our brothers. Q. Coach, all year you've taken down big opponent mid week, on the weekend, one after the other. Where did these kids get this resolve and that grit? COACH DEGGS: Well, the harder you work, the harder it is to surrender, and we've paid the ultimate price. These kids work. In the last two years they've been up at 5 a.m. over 150 times. They've run up to the top mount Omaha on the side of our field countless of thousands of times. They have blood, sweat and tears in the bucket, and that has built an expectation. When you have blood, sweat and tears, there is an expectation. These guys expect to win in everything they do. There is no hoping in our program. Hope for us means you're kind of prepared. We have punched the card every day for the last two years relentlessly, good or bad. And the harder you work, the harder it is to surrender, and we've got no surrender in us. Q. How much do you think that attitude helped with maybe take a situation where you could look at it like as you pointed out, we've caught some breaks, and instead of thinking we're lucky to be in this game, how much do you think that kind of mindset helped instill that belief? COACH DEGGS: Well, attitude for us is the supreme confidence in our ability to win in any circumstance or situation. Out and out we think we're going to win. Our guys are trained on that. I don't care if we're playing monopoly, pick-up basketball, cards, if there is a test, I'm going to make the best grade. We compete at everything and we expect to win. A byproduct of that is an aggressor. An aggressor can play the game with the freedom of the fair consequence. Our guys aren't afraid to crash and burn. If we'd have gone down, we'd have gone down, but we'd have gone down with full hearts because we know we gave it everything we had. We have no regrets. Q. Sometimes coaches have feelings, gut feelings about how a team's going to play in a huge game like this. I'm curious, when you woke up this morning, did you have any thoughts on the way you thought this team would play? COACH DEGGS: Did a lot of praying, lot of praying. I know it sounds cliché and all that, and it's not going to make anybody here feel any better. But I cannot tell you how good a ballclub that is that we just got through playing. Very complete, very well-rounded. Honestly, I thought we were going to have to play one of our best games of the year, if not the best game of the year. Like I said, did a lot of praying. Left it up to the Lord, and had perfect peace with whatever happens. Thank all of you guys. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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